The Scientific and Social Policy Implications of Racial Differences

Edited by Kevin Lamb, Race, Genetics & Society: Glayde Whitney on the Scientific and Social Policy Implications of Racial Differences, Scott-Townsend Publishers, 2002, 181 pages.

The editor of this collection has appended to it a bibliography of the publications of the late Glayde Whitney, which occupies almost thirteen closely printed pages. Ninety percent of the entries cite articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as Behavior Genetics, Journal of Comparative & Physiological Psychology, and Physiology and Behavior. Glayde Whitney, professor of psychology at Florida State University and president of the Behavior Genetics Association, was a scientist who approached psychology from its biological grounding.

He was also a dedicated activist. He not only contributed to American Renaissance but honored The Occidental Quarterly and the Citizens Informer by becoming a member of their editorial advisory boards. Just as he had begun to take part in the activities of the Council of Conservative Citizens and to contribute almost regularly to its publication Citizens Informer, Dr. Whitney died at the age of 62 from an attack of the asthma from which he had long suffered. His death was a great loss. He was a brilliant man and, more importantly, an exemplar of honor and loyalty.

This collection culls from Dr. Whitney’s work articles that he published in the later years of his life, a period when he undertook the great task of serving as an interpreter of science to the educated citizenry. He came to this task after decades of distinguished achievement as a research scientist who realized that psychology can only be founded on biological and chemical science, not ideology. During his work as a researcher in the field of behavior genetics he had found that an ideologically motivated censorship was in effect. Much was there to be discovered, but only an intrepid few dared to publish research results that were not supportive of the Marxist assumption of human equality.

The first article, “Ideology and Censorship in Behavior Genetics,” was given as a presidential address in 1995 to the twenty-fifth annual meeting of the Behavior Genetics Association. Reaching its climax in a frank presentation of the behavioral genetic implications of the widely disparate homicide rates in black and white population groups, this address unleashed a storm of acrimony against Dr. Whitney. He terms the response “a parody of political correctness.” He had directly challenged the “ideologically-based dogma and taboo hampering the pursuit of knowledge in the science of behavior genetics.” This climactic event marked the advent of Glayde Whitney, citizen-scientist. An extensive bibliography follows the address.

“Raymond B. Cattell and the Fourth Inquisition” tells how the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in Psychological Science, the highest honor given by the American Psychological Association, was awarded to Cattell in 1997, only to be revoked because of an ideologically motivated clamor against a few words that Cattell had written in support of eugenics. This was done despite the fact that, until recently, “many social progressives of both the right and the left were enthusiastic eugenicists.” (The best definition of eugenics is probably that offered by the man who coined the term, Sir Francis Galton, in 1904: “Eugenics is the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage.”)

Much of the furor arose over Cattell’s book A New Morality from Science: Beyondism (New York: Pergamon, 1972), a work that enjoyed some vogue among humanists when it first appeared but is now out of print, although widely held by academic libraries. (Cattell expounded upon his philosophical ideas in a revised sequel that was published in 1987.) It is still worthy of close study, particularly by those who seek a non-theist, scientific basis for a social ethic.

“Whatever Happened to Eugenics?” is a review article of Roger Pearson’s Heredity and Humanity, a book that examines the paradoxical development by which “the prevention of human suffering came to be considered the greater evil.” Although eugenics is today anathema throughout the Western world, “[i]n China it is alive and well. The Maternal and Infantile Health Care Law went into effect on 1 June 1995. A media mention states ‘The official Xinhua News Agency reported that China currently has more than 10 million disabled people whose births could have been prevented if such a law had been in effect.’”

In another article, “Reproduction Technology for a New Eugenics,” Dr. Whitney reports that “in June of 1999 China opened a government-run ‘notables’ Sperm Bank that accepts donors in three categories: intellectuals with at least a master’s degree, top businessmen, and successful artists, entertainers, and athletes. . . Clinic officials are quoted as saying that they would select sperm with high-quality characteristics’ to fulfill a popular demand for ‘attractive, intelligent children.’”

Alas, no such popular demand seems to exist in the United States, at least if one is to judge by the total output of the mass media. Howls of outrage would descend upon the government of any European nation that dared to follow the example of China by implementing a similar program of eugenics. That errant nation would possibly even be invaded and reconstructed by a hastily concocted United Nations police force. It would at least be presented to a gullible American citizenry as a menace to all of humanity, an outlaw among the nations.

Dr. Whitney dares to ask, “[f]rom whence has come the unrelenting propaganda campaign to demonize eugenics, which after all is devoted to the prevention of suffering and the improvement of mankind? In a word, the answer is Marxism, including its present incarnation as Politically Correct modern Liberalism.” “[T]he application of genetic knowledge for the benefit of humanity is anathema to socialist environmentalism.” Today, as one among various results of this campaign, “there is no substantive difference between Lysenkoism and official government policy toward education in America.”

Fortunately, not every current social trend is dysgenic. Many rightists will be surprised to read the following: “The legalization of voluntary abortion in the United States in 1973 may have had the unintended consequence of lowering the crime rate in the 1990s. This is because women at higher risk of raising criminals: teenage mothers, single mums, blacks, have disproportionately higher rates of abortion.” The study cited is that by Donohue and Levitt, “Legalized Abortion and Crime,” published by Stanford University Law School in 1999. Public funding to enable all poor and/or “at-risk” women who want abortions to have them would seem to be a genuinely progressive goal.

“Shockley’s Experiment,” reprinted from The Mankind Quarterly, refers in its title to a research proposal that the late Nobel Prize winner William Shockley presented to the National Academy of Sciences in 1969: Study the effects of transracial adoptions to determine to what extent the gap between black and white IQ scores can be diminished by the rearing of black infants in a favorable environment. Shockley, the inventor of the transistor, had won even more notoriety by defending the hypothesis that the IQ gap is largely hereditary, not simply an outcome of environmental factors. Such a study took place in Minnesota, where 101 white families had adopted 110 black children. The study, conducted over 10 years’ time, yielded, in Dr. Whitney’s words, “the unfortunate truth that no one was particularly hoping for” because it was “completely at odds with the revealed wisdom of the egalitarian left: When black babies are adopted into middle class bright white families they grow up to function intellectually like blacks.”

“On the Races of Man,” although it is in the middle of this collection, is the best starting point for most readers. It is a compendium of facts regarding the biological differences among the races and does not dwell on the IQ question. All too often, it is forgotten that behavioral differences among the races (or subspecies) can have as much significance as differences in IQ. Dr. Whitney presents evidence that there is a distinct difference between the populations of North Africa (primarily Caucasians of Arab culture) and the denizens of Sub-Saharan. It is now known that the population of Sub-Saharan Africa evolved in isolation from the rest of the world for almost 200,000 years.

This essay presents many striking facts. Three examples will be cited here: (1) A revealing explanation is offered for the fact that 40 percent of the world-class runners in men’s middle and long-distance events have come from just one African tribe that comprises only 10 percent of the population of Kenya. The evolutionary explanation for this fact will provoke most readers to further thinking. (2) African-American children attain sexual maturation 3 years before European-American children. (The reviewer must speculate here: Does this partially account for the increasing number of interracial couplings arising from the racial integration of the nation’s public school systems?) (3) Dr. Whitney even dares to question the fashionable dogma that hybridization is to be welcomed. In his words, “While hybrid vigor is a biological reality, so are hybrid incompatibilities between blacks and whites.”

The lengthy and heavily documented essay “Crime and Racial Profiling by U.S. Police: Is There an Empirical Basis?” addresses an issue of urgent concern to all people who live in racially mixed metropolitan areas. This is an issue that reaches the average white person with much more impact than endless columns of numbers regarding IQ scores, discussions of standard deviations, etc. Consider just these significant facts: “[B]lacks are 50 to 200 times more likely than whites to commit interracial crimes of violence.” The black rate for interracial robbery or “mugging,” as of 1997, is 103 times the white rate. In the same year, “The 1,140,670 acts of violence committed by blacks against whites constitute 56.3 percent of all violent crimes committed by blacks.” Having this data at hand is by itself justification for purchasing a copy of this book.

Several shorter articles in this collection first appeared in American Renaissance, but three-fourths of this book will be new reading for most subscribers to that magazine.

Whites dedicated to their race make their lives meaningful by becoming factors in the historical process, not just another unit of economic production and consumption. They will set aside one evening every week for cultural and political study. (Time can be found by eliminating hobbies, which are juvenile anyway, and by reducing television-watching.) This collection of the best of Glayde Whitney’s writings should enjoy a high place on their reading lists because of the trenchant facts and rigorous reasoning it contains. The more lengthy essays have bibliographies that will facilitate in-depth study. This book should be purchased and carefully studied.